Makin' bindings and a nice surprise....

This morning before heading off to work I scooted myself up to the shop and got the second heel block glued on. I wanted to do that so when I got home tonight I could get the last block glued on. The plan worked and I have all of the blocks glued on. Since my workbench was being used as a gluing and clamping platform, I decided to see what I had for Koa bindings. Darn, only 2 pieces in my stash. I was just about to order some when I remember I still had an orphaned Koa side that was 5/32" thick. I dug it out and went to work ripping binding strips out of it. I was able to rip a dozen strips out of what I had left. I had already used about half of the piece making the neck center strips so that was the most I could get. I got them all thicknessed down to .010" so I have pieces for the body and fingerboard. I put them all together and ran them through the bender. I will check on them later to see if any of them cracked. I bent 5 just in case one goes bad.

I had an exciting thing happen today too. We had a delivery of 4 tons of wood pellets (we heat with a wood pellet stove) and was talking to one of the men that made the delivery. I found out that he has been following this blog since last summer when my wife had told him that I built guitars. He is a player and has been reading along until I took my little hiatus over the winter months. I have a few friends who follow this, but that is the first time that I have had someone I don't know tell me he has been reading along. So.... if you are reading this.... (and you know who you are!)... thanks! It is really cool knowing someone else gets some entertainment from my blog.

On to the pictures.

Here is the neck heel with all 3 blocks glued up. Everything is lined up beautifully.

A dozen koa binding strips.

It just dawned on me that I have never shown the order I put things together when I bend. First I use a stainless steel slat, then put the wood wrapped in damp Kraft paper.

Next my heating blanket. If you look you can see the light bulbs are on in the bottom half of the bender pre-heating the form.

Next another stainless steel slat.

Fire up the blanket, clamp it down slowly and cook it for about 10 minutes to harden the bend. This method has worked well for me so far.